Frequency 650

Very fast, as usual. 1 loop with the front group as planned. Want to save the legs for this weekend.

http://www.elmilagrobaja.com - Another site for the ICON Group, developed as part of the Three Amigos. A real estate development in Baja, Mexico.

Easy weights and a recovery spin at the gym this morning. Tucker ride tomorrow, weights and ride on Wednesday then 3 days off before the covington ride.

I’m happy… and sad. Discovery took everyone to the cleaners. I have to go back to work now… and give the TV back to Leslie.

Jake Mountain, Montgomery Creek, Cooper Gap, Hightower Gap, Puncheon Gap, Frying Pan Gap, Deerlick Gap (who names these things), Winding Stair Gap, Turner Creek, Jones Creek. Back up to Dahlonega again today, alone, to ride some of the rest of the Fools Gold 100 course. Mostly fire roads with lots of climbing. 4633 feet of it today. 9 mph avg. 3 Hours 20 min. of riding but 4+ hours with getting lost and looking at maps. Muddy start in the singe track but better on the fire roads. Great weather. Went through the US Army base up there too. (not exactly secure). These trails are shared by horses… I’m getting a little tired of riding around poop and smelling it all day. The ride is now 3 weeks away. This is going to be a TOUGH ride. The trails are brutal the entire way. I’m worried about the cut off time. Even if I’m feeling strong, I have to get to 94 miles before 7:45 pm. That’s 13 Hours 10 minutes after I start. It’s going to be really close. Covington next weekend… 4 hour century… we’ll see.

Rode from the house to the start of the Pizza ride with Dana. Unfortunatly, there was a crash on the first loop and Connie went down along with half a dozen crunched riders. I got by with only a crushed hand. Everyone seemed to be OK. A fire truck showed up. The group ride was over… back to the house.

For probable doping in the off season and lying about his whereabouts? What the hell.

Moreni tested positive and the Cofidis team has dropped out of the tour. Ironic since that is a French team (Moreni is Italian though) and they protested at the start of Stage 15 against dopers.

Denis Menchov just dropped out of the Tour at the feed area of stage 17 today. He was to be the CG leader for Rabobank before Rasmussen’s performance. He’s been helping him for the last 2 weeks. Sad.

http://www.velonews.com/tour2007/details/articles/12944.0.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/07/25/tour.stage16.ap/

Left a little early for the ride today and did the full ride so I got some extra miles in. Felt good and strong but got dropped on the back side of the second loop. Took it into the red zone and couldn’t recover in-time to catch back on. Didn’t feel so bad when 2 other Cat 3 riders got dropped as well. 21 mph avg speed for the group ride (24 miles). I kind of expected this since I’ve been doing longer, less intense workouts lately. Starting to ramp the speed back up again but I’m a little concerned with the Covington Century only a week and a half away.

Since Dana was nice enough to share some “interval music”, thought I would share as well. So here’s one from “The Almost” – Say This Sooner. This is the drummer and one of the singers for Underoath (Aaron Gillespie), although this time he recorded everything himself. Caution, some of the other songs contain “religious” references… I warned you.

My pick to win the TDF (prior to the start) Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for a banned blood transfusion and is leaving the Tour along with the rest of the team.

http://tourdefrance.active.com/Page22226.aspx 

This typically means (as it did today) that I did legs, upper body and core work. It’s strange how my focus has changed over the years. I used to spend 1 hour working on only 2 muscle groups with lots of excercises and pyramiding sets with a goal to gain muscle mass. Now, I cram in an entire body work out into 45 minutes to 1: gain strength in my legs, 2:NOT look like a toothpick cyclist and 3:Overall fitness will help me keep proper form on the bike and keep from getting hurt.

Needed to get some miles on the Fools Gold 100 course in the Dahlonega area. It’s 2, 50 mile loops so Matthew (who signed up for the 50) and I went up to ride some of the course on the newer trails. The beginning is mostly fire roads and I’ve been on Bull MTN several times so we skipped those parts but covered most of the rest of the ride. Several sections were un-ridable but there were also some very fun new single track areas. We kept and easy pace for most of the ride to figure out about how fast and long the ride would take. I think a realistic pace is about 8 mph on most of this course which means 12.5 hours of riding plus stops. Today – 2 Hours 28 min, 2805 calories burned, 138 avg hr, 3000 ft of climbing which means 7000+ for each loop of the course. Lots of map checks, a little lost, many horses, few riders.

Heather just sent us a note that said Joe was looking and feeling good at 70 miles with a projected finish around 3 am. Go Joe!

Just something quick this morning before the festivities.

Pool party at 11:00. Big day for him.

He’s been running since 4 am and hopes to finish in 24 hours. Nut.

At the gym this morning. Forgot how boring it was to sit on the spin bike alone.

My son is 2 years old today. When asked to comment on the subject for the website he said, “cracker?” hummm…. Finished the day off with a cup cake. Big party on Saturday.

Tough… started well, strong up the Midvale road / climb, up in the front for the sprint next to the Pepsi factory (finishes at the blue sign, now I know). Rain started on the road into the park. Heavy rain. Hammered the climbs because downhill was sketchy in the pack, limited breaking, couldn’t see with the rain and my eyes were burning the entire loop between the sweat and rain and water from the other riders it was impossible. I had to sit just of the back to get any kind of sight. I was on the limit the entire loop. Not fun. I don’t mind riding in the rain but that kind of riding will be saved for race day rain. I’ll bring goggles.

Tell Adobe how to make Photoshop faster.